Stopping The Noise In Your Head

by Reid Wilson, Ph.D.

Publisher: HCI

ISBN: 9780757319068

Price:

$16.95

Did you lock the door? Did you prepare enough? Will you get there on time? What if you forget something? What if someone gets sick? Do you have enough money? From the little daily naggings to the bigger life-impacting thoughts, worry can consume us. It’s time to flip our perspective on this mental chatter and recognize that worry serves a purpose in our lives. In fact, worry can be healthy.

Stopping the Noise in Your Head provides you with a step-by-step approach to overcoming anxiety and worry by moving away from comfort, confidence, and security…and willingly moving toward uncertainty, distress, and discomfort. Drawing on a range of sources—from firefighters and fitness instructors to Sir Isaac Newton and Muhammad Ali—Stopping the Noise in Your Head demonstrates the importance of shifting our perspective and stepping toward our challenges in order to regain control of our lives.

Learn to identify the difference between heart-racing, sweaty-palm Signals (I just missed the train!) and Noise (What if I miss the train?)

Detect anxiety-ridden patterns by catching yourself in the midst of them

Use the power of perspective—“This is hard, and I can handle it”—to get through

Choose to feel clumsy, awkward, unsure, and afraid as a means for managing distress

Pinpoint situations when you must “act as though”

Worry is a game. Anxiety’s best strategy is to convince you to spend most of your energy worrying about how to protect yourself or someone else against harm. It scores points by getting you to worry and then step back instead of step forward into the action. Stopping the Noise will arm you with the strategies you need to defeat your opponent once and for all.

About the Author

About the author Reid Wilson, PhD, is Director of the Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center in Chapel Hill and Durham, NC, and is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He is author of the bestselling classic Don’t Panic and the co-author of Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents, as well as Stop Obsessing! and Playing with Anxiety. He is a Founding Clinical Fellow of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and a Fellow of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Worry Works for MeChapter 2: It’s a Competition

THE DOMINANT STRATEGY OF ANXIETY

Chapter 3: Ahhh… The Comfort of CertaintyChapter 4: An Amygdala, a Priest and a Rabbi…

YOUR WINNING STRATEGY

STEP BACKChapter 5: Noise PollutionChapter 6: Make It NOT About Your ContentChapter 7: Content and CompetitionChapter 8: Move the MassiveChapter 9: Be Mindful of the Moment

WANT ITChapter 10: Taking the Paradoxical Point of ViewChapter 11: A Profound Experience With the ToiletChapter 12: Message to Self: I Want This

STEP FORWARDChapter 13: Dangling by FingertipsChapter 14: An Olympic AttitudeChapter 15: How to Talk Like a First ResponderChapter 16: “I Made It as Unpleasant as I Could – and Then I Waited”

BE CUNNINGChapter 17: The Art of Cunning: Rope-a-Dope and the Brer Rabbit OffenseChapter 18: Act as Though This is Such a Clever TacticChapter 19: Talking to AnxietyChapter 20: “Give Me Your Threats – Let Them Come”